We make our own choices
by Analia1
Summary: Written: Dec 25, 2002, Posted: Dec 29, 2002. Short ficlet, movie-based, A/L slash. Legolas ponders Aragorn's 'death' and the choices he makes when he finds that Aragorn is alive. Feedback welcome!


Title: We Make Our Own Choices  
Author: Analia (AnaliaIsaura@aol.com)  
Rating: PG  
Paring: Aragorn/Legolas  
Summary: Legolas thinks about Aragorn's 'death' and the choices he makes when he finds out that Aragorn is alive. (Purely movie-based)  
Notes/Disclaimer: This is just a short little ficlet, written in Legolas's POV. First written for the Two Towers challenge at the Library of Moria. These characters and events are not mine and nor do I claim them to be, so no suing allowed.   
  
And remember, feedback is a virtue!  
  
  
  
There is a certain air of denial around me that even the humans must feel with intensity of it. I cannot linger on the happenings of this day or I will be overcome with the images burned still into my subconscious mind.   
The Evenstar is still grasped within my palm; why I have not let it go I care not to linger upon. It is all that remains of Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and capturer of my heart. I have spent far too many nights trying to decipher what it is about you that has taken me so, be it your elven-like grace, loyalty, or strength of heart I do not know. Yet the day we left Rivendell it was brought to my attention that you and Arwen are bound by fate to be together, the bond sealed by the intricate necklace that I cannot bear to let go of. Just a day ago it would have made my heart heavy with remorse, but now it is all that I have of you save for the feelings in my heart.  
As I think about this my ears catch a strange footfall enter the...room, if it can so be called, that I am just standing in. I quickly learned to tune out the heavy footsteps of humans, but this step was not so heavy as if the one was trying to tread softly. I whirled; hope foolishly beginning to blossom in my chest.  
Or perhaps not so foolishly, for you are right there. Or at least I see you there, dirty, wounded, and listless...but there's determination there, in your eyes, and I know I have no been deceived. Forcing my body to move, I step in front of your path.  
There is so much to say, but I do not think I have the heart to say it. So instead I tell you that you are late, as if thinking that you were gone had not affected me at all. I want to take you in my arms and hold you until the end of my immortal life. Drawing back slightly, I look into you eyes and assess what I see there.  
'You look terrible...' and yet so beautiful. Something flickers in your eyes for a moment, that I will surely be dwelling on for many nights to come, but then a smile breaks out across your face. My hand comes up and inside I see the Evenstar...I have the choice now to close my hand. Would you ask if I did not offer? Or do you even know what it is that I hold? But my hesitation costs me, and your eyes fall sharply on the beautiful object in my hand. Again I am struck with the unthinkable urge to curl my hand around the Evenstar and let it cut into my flesh and once it has been seared with my blood cast it to the flame and watch as the symbol of your love fades...but such thoughts are rash and immature, because you are not mine.  
Again I look up and in your eyes there is that emotion again, lingering longer this time before you visibly shove it back into the recesses of your mind and take the Evenstar from my hand. I cannot help the bitter smile that crosses my face, I had known, of course I have known; so why did I dare think that you would do differently?  
And then we embrace as is custom, and I again have the chance to say something, anything, to convey to you what I felt when I saw him go over that cliff. I had the chance to tell you that you have captured yet another immortal's heart within your own...yet I am stilled, and then you are gone beyond where my senses can reach.  
Now here I am again, with a strange feeling in my breast, because lingered within the joy of seeing you alive is the bitter thought that wishes you dead so that I may be rid of this infatuation. But we make our own choices, and I am where I am only because I have not the right to claim you as my own.  
  
~Fin 


End file.
